The case is made.
Category Archives: Political Commentary
Intellectual Insanity
The lamps are going out all over the world. Deliberately this time.
Appalling
Why has Obama treated Netanyahu so rudely?
It seems pretty clear to me that, of all of the countries in the Middle East, there’s only one where he wants to see a regime change.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Instapundit has a theory:
Possibly Obama just hates Israel and hates Jews. That’s plausible — certainly nothing in his actions suggests otherwise, really.
But it’s also possible — I’d say likely — that there’s something else going on. I think Obama expects Israel to strike Iran, and wants to put distance between the United States and Israel in advance of that happening. (Perhaps he even thinks that treating Israel rudely will provoke such a response, saving him the trouble of doing anything about Iran himself, and avoiding the risk that things might go wrong if he does). On the most optimistic level, maybe this whole thing is a sham, and the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran, with this as distraction. The question for readers is which of these — not necessarily mutually exclusive — explanations is most plausible.
I’m going to go with Occam’s Razor myself. I’ve seen no evidence that Obama gives a damn whether or not Iran gets nukes (and perhaps he would even be happy to see it — who knows)?
[Update mid morning]
We are all Bibi Netanyahu now:
I think the reaction to Obama’s treatment of Bibi Netanyahu hits home because it was so personal in nature, and because it epitomized how the American people have been treated by Obama and the Democrats, with arrogance and disdain.
We have seen this attitude since the Inauguration, when Obama and the crowd treated George W. Bush with disrespect, in the smears by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other leading Democrats against health care protesters, in the daily attacks by the left-wing blogs and mainstream media against the Tea Party members, in the treatment of Sarah Palin and Trig Palin, in the bribes and budgetary chicanery used to pass a health care bill opposed by a significant majority of the population, and in the disgusting use of the race card to stifle legitimate political dissent.
In Bibi Netanyahu we see something we have lost in our leader, an unflinching sense of national destiny, an unapologetic pride in who we are and why we are, and a willingness to stand up to tyrants and neighborhood bullies regardless of the price.
Instead, we have a bully for a leader, who prefers the company of other bullies to true democrats.
You Don’t Say
Congress apparently didn’t bother to read the bill before voting on it and passing it. I guess it’s just too much trouble.
Do they have any concept of what incompetent boobs they appear to be to we normal people?
It’s A High Bar
But Paul Krugman may have hurdled it — his dumbest statement yet:
Democrats had a lot of harsh things to say about former President George W. Bush — but you’ll search in vain for anything comparably menacing.
I guess he didn’t get out much. But it doesn’t matter, because…you know…assassination threats and wishes against George Bush weren’t racist. And hateful.
[Saturday morning update]
Paul Krugman always gets the memo.
What a tool.
What’s Wrong With Us?
With the results of the recent Iraqi election coming in, it just occurs to me that seemingly all fledgling democracies follow a parliamentary model. Has anyone copied our system? I know there are places that have “presidents,” but I’m not sure that they’re particularly faithful to our model in anything else, including separation of powers.
The New Kansas-Nebraska Act
Some historical thoughts from Tony Blankley (an immigrant who understands the foundational principles of this country):
…we enter our history’s second stage in the struggle against the abomination of socialism. Just as slavery had been contained in the South, so entitlement socialism has, until this week, been more or less contained in service to only the poor and the elderly — and even those programs (for the elderly) operate on the principle of beneficiaries paying monthly premiums for the benefits they will later get (Medicare/Social Security). Only the poor, under Medicaid, received benefit without premium payment.
But now, just as the Kansas-Nebraska Act broke through the geographic limit to slave states, the Democratic party’s 2010 health-care law has broken the boundary that limited socialism. Now, the chains of socialism are to be clamped onto the able-bodied middle class — not merely retirees who have paid their insurance premiums and the presumed-helpless poor.
Forcing people to pay for others’ welfare is just a new form of slavery. Or, as Hayek wrote, serfdom.
The Satellite Dish
And The Hits Just Keep Coming
Here’s the latest, from AT&T. Bet this will encourage them to hire a lot more people:
AT&T Inc. said it plans to take a non-cash charge of about $1 billion in the first quarter following the passage of the health-care reform bill earlier this week, according to a filing submitted by the company Friday. The telecommunication giant will also evaluate changes to its health care benefits for employees and retirees.
But don’t forget — if you like your plan, you can keep it! As long as the ObamaCare hasn’t wiped it out, of course…
And of course, we can at least count on new jobs for IRS agents.
If You Liked The “Stimulus…”
…you’ll love ObamaCare. Further thoughts here:
In both cases, despite broad public skepticism, the Democrats pushed forward on their bill while the White House intensified its messaging efforts, turning President Obama loose on crowd after friendly crowd in an effort to sell Middle America on a near-trillion-dollar fix whose murky specifics were in flux even as it approached a final vote. Sure enough, in both cases polling found support for the measure slowly creeping up as Congress passed the measure (with virtually no Republican support.) And in the days immediately after each became law, public support even reached scant majorities or pluralities in some places, with many saying that though the bill was imperfect, it sure beat doing nothing at all.
Liberals, covered in the stink of success, are now enjoying that bump. But, as I outline in the piece, if Obamacare’s post-passage public opinion trajectory is anything like that of the stimulus, they shouldn’t get too comfortable. A year out, the popularity of the stimulus falls somewhere between Tiger Woods and John Edwards. — and for similar reasons. The stimulus is widely-perceived to have been a failure because it didn’t keep its promise to stop and reverse job losses. Instead, 49 of 50 states have lost jobs since the stimulus passed.
We’re only a few days out from Obamacare’s passage and already reports are piling in from businesses bracing for tax increases and coverage changes. Wait until it’s been a year.
Maybe they should have read the bill…